" LA GRANDE DECHARGE " OF LAKE ST. JOHN 161 



might have continued our journey by buckboard, and 

 have thus reached Chicoutimi within ten or twelve 

 hours after leaving the Island House, in time to ob- 

 tain a few hours' sleep before taking the steamer next 

 morning to descend the Saguenay. Leaving the Isl- 

 and House at the time we did, somewhere about one 

 o'clock, our original intention had been to take tents 

 and blankets with us in our canoe, and encamp for the 

 night upon Isle Maligne, some eight miles from the 

 lake. But we were assured by Paul Savard that 

 there would be no difficulty about our sleeping for the 

 night at the club-house of the Saguenay Fish and 

 Game Club, situated at the lower point of Alma Isl- 

 and, of which his brother George is the guardian. 

 We were thus saved the annoyance of taking either 

 cooking utensils or a camping outfit with us, and our 

 guides were very easily able to carry everything over 

 the portages in a single trip. 



A pleasant run of about fifteen miles brought us to 

 the head of the first portage, just above the first chute 

 of the Grand Discharge, a roaring fall of some fifteen 

 feet, stretched like a mill-dam entirely across the 

 stream, here some eight hundred feet in width, and 

 followed by a succession of very wild rapids. But 

 before arriving at the portage the first adventure of 

 our trip occurred. The smooth, rapid current adown 

 which we had first floated gave way to some sharp, 

 short rapids, and, in order to save time and labor, 

 Morel and his assistant, instead of following the chan- 

 nel of the Discharge, attempted a short-cut across a 

 bay in which numerous rocks protruded above the 



foam of the surrounding rapids. Down and over the 



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